Backpage.com Founder Is Headed to Prison

Michael Lacey sentenced to 5 years, $3M fine on a money laundering charge
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 29, 2024 9:05 AM CDT
Backpage.com Founder Is Headed to Prison
Former Backpage.com owner Michael Lacey attends a Senate committee on Jan. 10, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington.   (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

Michael Lacey, a founder of the lucrative classified site Backpage.com, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison and fined $3 million for a single money laundering count in a sprawling fraud case that alleged he profited from prostitution. A jury convicted Lacey, 76, of international concealment money laundering last year, but deadlocked on 84 other prostitution facilitation and money laundering charges. US District Judge Diane Humetewa later acquitted Lacey of dozens of charges for insufficient evidence, reports the AP, but he still faces about 30 prostitution facilitation and money laundering charges.

Authorities say the site generated $500 million in prostitution-related revenue from its inception in 2004 until it was shut down by the government in 2018. Lacey's lawyers say their client was focused on running an alternative newspaper chain and wasn't involved in day-to-day operations of Backpage. But Humetewa told Lacey during sentencing he was aware of the allegations against Backpage and did nothing. "In the face of all this, you held fast," Humetewa said. "You didn't do a thing." Two other Backpage executives, CFO John Brunst and Executive Vice President Scott Spear, also were convicted last year and were each sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.

The judge ordered Lacey and the two executives to report to the US Marshals Service in two weeks to start serving their sentences. Prosecutors said the three defendants were motivated by greed, promoted prostitution while masquerading as a legitimate classified business, and misled anti-trafficking organizations and law enforcement officials about the true nature of Backpage's business model. Yvonne Ambrose, whose 16-year-old daughter Desiree Robinson was trafficked in Chicago on Backpage and killed in 2016 by a man who answered an online sex ad, told the judge on Tuesday about the pain she feels from her daughter's death. "I suffer every day from the loss of my baby," Ambrose said.

(More Backpage.com stories.)

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